


Wildflowers

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Series: The Exalt and the Fellblood [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Amnesia, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abandonment, Doomed Timeline(s) (Fire Emblem: Awakening), Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fire Emblem: Awakening Spoilers, Grima!Severa, Imaginary Friends, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Nightmares, No Morgan, Recovery, Severa is an only child, Suicidal Thoughts, hey @intsys if you arent gonna give your human grima designs wings and six eyes whats the POINT, i married cordelia and couldnt stop thinking about fellblood sevvy, minor Robin/Cordelia, more accurately enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers, severa's shitty childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 18:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: Severa is cursed. It is not a hex, not the work of some sinister magician, but she is cursed nonetheless by a dark evil slumbering in her veins. It is an evil passed on unknowingly by her parents, just as they leave her at the mercy of this evil. She does her best to manage but is thwarted at every turn, each decision and each path driving her forward to the same inevitable conclusion - to the realization of her terrible and haunting purpose.Lucina could not be more different. Born of noble standing, raised by loving parents in comfort and in health, showered with affection and praise and hope and light. She suffers all the more when the world is yanked out from underneath her, and when the castles crumble and the forests burn she has nothing - nothing but her father's sword.The Exalt and the Fellblood, lives inextricably entwined, forever bound but seldom crossing.





	Wildflowers

_1_

Severa is four when the headaches begin. It’s entirely possible that they began earlier, but she was late in learning to speak and therefore made no distinctions between the harsh, piercing pain of the headaches and the standard trivial distresses of toddler life. Even when she did learn to speak, she was slow, speaking in stutters. She never seemed to get a proper handle on her r’s, an unfortunate incapacity for someone whose father was named Robin and whose mother was named Cordelia. She struggled with her own name as well, and rather than betray her inability, she opted not to speak at all.

It didn’t help much that she seldom had anyone to speak to. Her parents would often get a friend or neighbor to take care of her while they were away. Severa was four, seldom spoke, and never understood why her house was always so very cold and empty.

It would have been difficult to explain the concept of war to a four-year-old, and neither Robin nor Cordelia felt equipped to have that conversation. And so it fell by the wayside. It was their work, their jobs, but never war. Even when they would come home, after weeks away, adorned in bandages and bruises and new scars, they would not use the term.

And Severa was excited to see them return each time. Her house felt warm again, felt like the place where she belonged. She and her father would play games, and he would read to her. Her mother would help her brush her hair, already so bright and red and so apt to tangle, even at such an early age.

The first migraine happened when her parents were away. A friend of theirs was taking care of her, in a house Severa had quickly begun to regard as her own, at least as much so as her parents’ house. She passed out from the pain in an instant, in a flash of hot white across her vision. She woke in bed, to the soft cooing of a woman who was not her mother.

Her parents took her to doctors, to clerics, to churches and infirmaries. The headaches were infrequent but painful enough that they felt it necessary to address them.

She recalls being six, sitting on a wooden bench, swinging her legs back and forth, hand clasped in her mother’s as she listened to a robed man use large words she didn’t yet understand. Years on she could not remember the words, but she remembered the faces. The distraught, troubled expression of her mother, usually so composed. The cleric, speaking with a serious tone, brow furrowed and mouth curled into a frown. But most of all she remembered the face of her father – of all the expressions that could have crossed his face, it was fear that seemed to win out. Fear without surprise. As if he had known what the answer would be even before bothering to ask the question.

Severa does not recall the conversation, but she recalls holding her mother’s hand as they walked through the city streets back towards home. She recalls stopping for food, and she recalls crying when she dropped her half-eaten pastry into a puddle on the roadside. Her father picked her up, wiped her puffy eyes, and carried her home on his shoulders.

Severa despises school. She is teased for her hair, for her stutter, for her slight lisp that is getting better but only slowly. She hates being at school almost as much as she hates returning to an empty house, and in this absence she finds herself seeking comfort within.

“Who are you talking to?” her guardian at the time – a neighbor, perhaps - had asked her once, before bed.

“My friend,” Severa had responded. “He says mommy and daddy are coming home soon.”

Her guardian had smiled warmly. “Yes, I’m sure they are.”

She remembers her parents speaking in hushed tones when they thought she couldn’t hear – asking about what age it was still okay to have imaginary friends, and shouldn’t she be making friends at school, and you know she has difficulties talking to others.

“Sevvy,” her father had said one night while tucking her into bed.

“Yes, daddy?”

“This…friend of yours. Does he have a name?”

Severa had shaken her head. “He said he won’t tell me what it is.” She was clutching tightly to a stuffed pegasus her mother had given her. It was a small thing, made of neatly sewn white cotton. Its wings were adorned with sequins. Severa slept with it every night, keeping it clasped to her chest. Cordelia hoped that having something with her would help restrain the wild running of her imagination.

Severa names it Aurora, after her mother’s pegasus. Pegasi make her nervous as a rule but she loves her mother and her mother loves Aurora so she loves her too. Cordelia teaches her to take care of the real Aurora, to brush her mane and trim her hooves and even to do the less pleasant things, like checking her teeth or cleaning the stables. Severa likes the stables – the smell reminds her of her mother.

When she is lonely, she goes to the stables to cry. Her arms tightened around her stuffed pegasus, her face buried in her knees, her backside in the hay. She is lonely a lot.

Her speech troubles are all but gone before she turns eight. She can speak not just adequately, but impressively, weaving together sentences that betray a sharp tongue and a sharper wit. She has learned harsh language from the children at school, and in times of stress often turns that language back on her parents.

Cordelia is shocked when it first happens and sends Severa to her room. She climbs into bed and pulls the covers over her head, arms still tightly clutching her pegasus. She regrets it – she knows the words are harsh and wrong and not words for a little girl, but she has no ability to stop herself. What comes to mind is what she vocalizes. Perhaps Cordelia didn’t deserve to be called a stupid bitch, and Severa cries and cannot sleep and crawls into her parents’ bed, begging forgiveness and promising to never say such things again.

Her parents comfort her and hold her tight and in the morning she never wants to leave, so content is she with her father’s arms and her mother’s chest and her stuffed pegasus tucked into the crook of her neck.

She learns to sew from the neighbor woman, a woman she’s begun to affectionately call “Aunt Maria”. Aunt Maria has no tolerance for swearing and the first and last time Severa uses foul language she receives a harsh rap on the knuckles. But Aunt Maria is kind and she is there and Cordelia is not, so when Aurora’s seams begin to fray she teaches Severa to sew.

Severa is terrible at it. Her fingers are clumsy and imprecise, and she bites her nails so she can never grip the thread properly to slip it through the eye of the needle and she accidentally gets little pinpricks of blood all down Aurora’s seams. But she manages to do it, eventually. And the next time a hole opens up, she can do it more or less without help. And the third time, when one wing falls off, she does it all by herself, without even needing to tell an adult about it.

She begins to rely more on herself. She continues sewing, focusing her efforts into the first thing that has ever occupied her attention. When she picks herself off the side of the road after a fight she mends her own skirt, and when the winter winds blow snow across the town she sews a lining into her jacket.

She buries the loneliness in her heart in folds of fabric and spools of thread and sharp metal needles, and for a time she forgets the pain. She sews a cloak for herself, adorning the sleeves with a trim of golden eyes.

“Severa, where did you learn this pattern?” her father had asked her, his hands gingerly fingering the delicate stitching. It wasn’t pretty work, but it was a cloak fit for an eight-year-old. Ragged and simple, but warm and soft. Something of Severa’s own. She had taken sequins from Aurora’s wings and stitched them into the eyes as sparkling pupils.

“He told me about it.”

“Him?” her father had asked. “Your imaginary friend?” She had noticed the dark look in his eyes, the concerned gaze shared between him and his mother. But she had said nothing. 

 

_2_

Severa is twelve when she is left alone. Her parents leave, and there is nothing whatsoever to indicate that that particular morning is anything out of the ordinary. They get dressed, ready their gear, kiss her goodbye, and assure her that they will return soon. The door shuts heavily behind them, in a cloud of dust and scraping wood. She is twelve years old and old enough to take care of herself and she goes to school and comes home and fixes herself a simple dinner and sits down with her stuffed pegasus to read a book.

A week passes. Then a second. On the sixteenth day she realizes there is no more food, and she visits the neighbors to see if they have any. She knocks on the door. The morning is cold and she keeps her cloak wrapped tightly around herself.

There is no response.

She tries again and waits again before finally crossing into the yard and pressing her face up against the glass of the window.

She is old enough to understand what is happening. The children at school speak about it, and her teachers do, even if her parents stayed silent. There is a war on, and food is expensive, and the town is often bustling with big scary men and women with big scary swords. Mercenaries from the north.

Severa breaks the latch on the window and creeps across the creaking wooden floors. The house is empty.

Severa is alone, but she is used to being alone, so she doesn’t mind terribly.

The war grows worse. Students begin to disappear from school, leaving with their parents as they flee south, towards the capitol and towards the safety of the Exalt’s power. Severa is one of the last to stop attending class. On her last day, the teacher informs them that the school is closing. There are too few students, too few teachers. Severa smiles, happy to not have to learn arithmetic.

Her parents would be home soon, and they would travel south to Ylisstol and they could be together again.

The town empties slowly. The neighboring houses fall into ruin, yards overgrown with weeds and windows adorned with boards, and Severa is forgotten about. She made no friends at school, and the neighbors and her babysitters are gone, so she sits and waits for her parents, curled up by the front door under her homemade cloak with her arms wrapped tightly around her stuffed pegasus. She finds food by scavenging in abandoned houses or taking walks through the overgrown gardens or through orchards left to rot. Occasional traders pass through and she trades with them. They often remark on her age, but she insists that she is old enough.

The headaches continue, less frequent but ever-present. She manages them by ignoring them. They never seem to last long, and so it never occurs to her that they are worth doing anything about. She finds it easiest to manage them when she speaks with her friend. She might as well, she supposes. He is there, and no one else is. No one is there to mock an adolescent for her imaginary friend.

She outgrows her cloak and digs up one of her father’s Plegian tactician robes. She tailors it to suit herself, fixing the sleeves and hemming the bottom edge. It’s warm and can go over her clothes, and the weather seems to keep getting colder and colder so she wears it as a permanent fixture.

She lays awake at night, trying to sleep with little success. There are sounds in the distance, sounds she can’t identify. Howls and groans. Sometimes she thinks she can hear things shifting downstairs – the scraping of nails on wood, low growls. One morning she comes down to find the front door hanging open on its hinges, swinging in the cold, grey breeze. She shivers and pulls her father’s robe tight and shuts the door, making a mental note to pick up a metal lock next time she looks for supplies.

The sky is always grey, even in the daytime. Snow falls on some days. She isn’t sure when it stops being snow and starts being ash, but the effect is the same. The air is cold and a fine white coat is dusted across the town, and the only appreciable difference is that snow smells good and ash doesn’t. At no point does it occur to her that her parents are not coming home. She settles into a new routine, a new life of loneliness and headaches and the ashen sky.

She cries rarely, only when the nightmares become terrible or the pain in her skull becomes unbearable. And when she does, she goes out back to the stables and curls up in her father’s robe and rests her head in the hay and pretends that she isn’t alone.

She sees her first Risen on a cold, rainy morning. The rain smells sour and bitter, and it mixes with the ash to form a nasty, pallid paste. She finds tracks in the mud in her front yard and follows them.

It’s a beastly creature, larger than a man, all matted hair and snarling teeth and white claws crusted over with brown. It digs through the refuse out front of a long-abandoned shop.

Severa crouches behind a overturned handcart, the hem of her robe in the mud, and she watches it with fascination.

She knows what Risen are, of course. They are the Enemy. The bad guys that mom and dad were trying to stop. The monsters that were at fault whenever the other kids would come to school and share scary stories of soldiers torn to pieces or children snatched from their beds. Those stories seemed to come less and less as the threat became more real. By the time she sees a Risen for herself, it has been two years since she has heard stories of them. But she knows all the same.

She holds an iron sword at her side. It’s heavy and she doesn’t know how to use it, but it makes her feel safer. She clutches the hilt tightly and creeps across the street, breath held. The Risen does not notice her until her sword is buried in its back.

It thrashes and howls, flailing desperately in pain. It lurches away, ripping the sword from her grasp.

She stumbles backwards and stares at it as it dies, writhing and bleeding in the mud. She is uncertain what to feel and elects to feel nothing whatsoever. It is a Risen. A monster, and the Enemy. She owes it no pity and no remorse.

She cries herself to sleep, unable to rid her hands of the feeling of iron sliding through flesh.

The sky fills with fire, and the ash gives way to thick black thunderclouds rumbling with bolts of orange lightning. The wind picks up, howling through the night as it cuts between the abandoned houses and looted frames of shops and forges and cafes and schools. The windows creak, trying their best to withstand the onslaught of force against them. Late one night, the front door opens again, ripping off the latch and swinging wide to slam against the wall.

Severa jolts awake and bolts downstairs, almost tripping on her robe as she stumbles down the rickety wooden staircase. The landing is empty, and the door hangs open wide, a portal to the dark and stormy night outside. Night is no longer black, but the same rumbling, flame-tinged red that the day is. In the distance she can see the glowing of fires on the horizon. She clutches her pegasus to her chest and trembles, unable to shake the feeling that she needs to do something. She can no longer sit and wait for her parents to return.

The next morning she packs up everything she has to her name. Her dull iron sword, her father’s cloak, hemmed to suit a thirteen-year-old, and her stuffed pegasus. She loads up a leather pack with what food she still has left. Mostly dried meat and hard bread, though she has a fair few vegetables from the garden out back.

She pays one last visit to the stables, shutting and locking the door like her mother reminded her to do so many times before. She stops and looks at her house before leaving, getting one last look at the empty shell in which she had spent so much of her life.

She finds herself crying, though she doesn’t know why. Tears roll down her cheeks as she gets one last look at the house, the quaint two-story cottage with the small stable in the back, and the door that hung askew on its hinges and the shutters that didn’t quite line up with the windows. The front left window she had broken playing catch with her father, now long-since patched. The front steps, on which she had sat on her mother’s lap as she braided her hair.

She wipes her tears and balls her hands into fists. Her house is framed in a glow of hazy red, the sky dark and tumultuous overhead. She pulls her hood over her head and slings her bag over her shoulder and sets out, south. Towards Ylisstol.

 

_3_

Severa is fifteen when she meets Lucina. She immediately recognizes her – not as herself, but as the daughter of Chrom. It’s obvious, from the way she carries herself to the color of her hair, to the hilt of the sword adorning her waist. Severa had met the Exalt only a handful of times, on visits to the capitol, but she never let go of her disdain for him.

It was his call to arms that called her mother and father away. It was the defense of him and his kingdom that Cordelia and Robin had given themselves over to, choosing to fight for him rather than for little Severa. She let the hatred fester, nursed by the voice in her head reminding her that her parents were not just gone – they were dead. They would not be returning, not now or ever. The voice reminded her that Chrom was at fault. If it were not for him, they would have been together, and they could still perhaps be together even now.

And so, when Severa sees Lucina for the first time, she feels nothing but burning, implacable disgust. The voice in her head soothes her, reminding her that Lucina was not at fault. It reminds her that there is no sense in assaulting the Exalt upon first introductions. She was nothing in the face of the Exalt. Lucina is tall, handsome, well-armed and well-trained. And Severa is what. Malnourished, weak, sick. Draped in her father’s oversized robe, one hand holding her pegasus to her side. She’s thankful the robe is large enough to cover her arms and their shameful contents.

She stays with Lucina’s army because they are the first people she’s encountered since leaving home. She has lived alone in the wilderness, her world one of starvation and desperation, scrabbling for food in the ruins of towns and sleeping underneath the ruinous black thunderclouds. Her survival can be attributed to nothing more than that voice in the back of her head, the voice telling her when to hide, when to hunt, where to seek food. What to do when cornered by Risen, how to ford rivers or climb cliffs. The voice takes care of her.

Even in her moments of dark, quiet desperation, the voice is there. At the edge of starvation it coaxes her through survival, at the height of her nightmares it whispers soothing words into her ear. It is the ghost of her father, the ghost of her mother. Kind and gentle, but firm and unyielding. On the rare occasion she disobeys the voice, she finds herself struck by a migraine for her hubris. Once a headache renders her unconscious while climbing a cliffside and she wakes in pain, a sprained leg twisted beneath her.

She uses Robin’s cloak as an all-purpose shelter, stringing it across gaps to give her cover from the acidic rain, wrapping herself in it on cold nights, using it as a fan to blow out fires. It’s dirty and disgusting and she only manages to keep it together with her meager kit of sewing supplies, but she is alone and it doesn’t matter how she looks or how she smells.

When she lives with others, though, she uses it as a shield. It wards others off, it obscures her face, and it serves as a barrier that lets her live in her own little bubble. She doesn’t get along with the others, even now. Her time in the wilderness had not done any favors for her already-lacking social skills, and more often than not fistfights would break out following a harsh remark or a terse comeback. Tensions run high in the camp – no one says it, but the perpetual air of desperation hangs over them, ever-looming with dark clouds and rumbling distant fire.

Lucina comes to her first, asking if there’s anything she needs.

“I just want to find my parents.”

Severa does not cry when Lucina tells her the truth. She takes off her father’s robe and folds it into a neat pile. She rests her stuffed pegasus on the robe in the woods and leaves them beneath a hastily-constructed grave marker.

Lucina watches her from a distance, careful not to make her presence known. When Severa departs, she crouches over the small shrine and touches the robes. She lightly fingers the patterned sleeves, running a thumb over the now-worn eyes and frayed gold edges. She frowns.

Severa returns to her tent that night and finds her pegasus resting on her pillow. She stares at it, unblinking, with trembling hands.

“It’s important to keep memories close,” Lucina explains. “To remind us why we fight.”

“I’m not a child,” Severa says. She picks it up and shoves it into Lucina’s arms. “It’s trash. I threw it out for a reason.”

She is angry, as she always is, but this anger burns deep and strong. It was as if she hadn’t expected her parents to be dead, like all the others.

Lucina stares at her.

“Don’t touch my stuff.”

“We need to talk, Severa,” Lucina sighs. She sits on Severa’s bed and rests the pegasus next to her.

“About?”

Lucina gestures at her. “You. Your standoffish behavior, your inability to cooperate, your attitude.”

Severa rolls her eyes.

“No, listen. Our survival depends on our ability to work as a team. You can’t fight the Risen if you’re too busy fighting the people who should be your friends.”

“They started it,” Severa protests. “I see them talking about me behind my back.”

“Can you blame them? Given your parents?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“D…don’t you know?”

Severa doesn’t react to the news that her father betrayed Chrom. She says nothing, just stares into the middle distance.  

“I…” she closes her eyes. “I need to be alone. Please go away.”

Severa is torn. She knows Chrom did not truly deserve to die, but a part of her feels vindicated. He had stolen her parents from her, so his end was fitting. Maybe there was justice in the world after all.

 

_4_

Time passes slowly, by Severa’s measure. She grows used to life in Lucina’s camp and gradually begins to befriend the others. Perhaps befriend is not the right word. Tolerate. She tolerates them, and they tolerate her. She can still hear it, hear the whispering and the see the side-eyed glares. She fights less, opting to keep to herself rather than confront the others. She knows she is not welcome here. The memory is too fresh, the man whose dark eyes she shares striking down the last Exalt before vanishing. Even the robes she had worn when she came to the camp matched, indelibly marking her as an outsider – not just an outsider, but an Enemy.

She knows she is not welcome and she situates her tent on the far outskirts of the camp. At night she lies awake, listening to the rustling of the dead trees and the howling of the grey wind and the distant crackling of fire and thunder. She hears them, too. The Risen, skulking around the borders of their little circle of civilization.

When she tells others, she is laughed at. Risen would not venture so close to their camp. So close to their light, their fire, their steel. Risen are cowardly automatons, and if they approached they’d be more than easily dispatched.

Lucina believes her and chooses to bolster night patrols.

“Why?” Severa asks, when Lucina comes to her in private to talk. “Why did you believe me?”

“You have no reason to lie,” came the simple response. “I know your type.”

Severa laughs harshly. “Oh? And what type is that?”

“It’s all just a front, isn’t it? It’s to keep others away. I know you aren’t as mean as you pretend to be.”

Severa raises an eyebrow. “Wow. That’s surprisingly accurate.”

“Really?”

Severa rolls her eyes. “No, you dolt. Gods, you people are thick. The only reason I’m even here is because there’s nowhere else to go.”

“I wish that weren’t the case.”

Severa picks at the hem of her skirt, tugging a frayed thread. She distantly recalls leaving her sewing kit in a muddy grotto somewhere to the south. “Yeah.”

“Severa…” Lucina sighs. “I…I don’t know what your problem is, but...”

“I don’t have a problem.”

Lucina laughs mirthlessly, incredulously.

“If I do, it’s you. You and your stupid camp of stupid kids.”

“Why don’t you leave, then?”

“Maybe I will.”

When Lucina leaves Severa cries. She isn’t sure why, but she curls under the covers of her bed and clings tightly to her stuffed pegasus and she cries for the first time since meeting Lucina.

It takes time, far more time than necessary, but eventually Lucina makes a decision.

She brushes through the flaps of Severa’s tent. “I’m going to be your friend.”

Severa scowls, furrowing her brow at the influx of morning half-light. “What?”

“I know what your problem is. And I’m going to fix it.”

Severa rubs her eyes groggily. “Really.”

Lucina sets down a tray of food. “I brought breakfast for you. I figured we should get to know each other a bit.”

Severa eyes the food. Lucina really pulled out all the stops for this, even despite their meager rations. She reaches for a sweetroll.

Lucina stops her hand. “Tell me about yourself. Then you get it.”

“I get it first. Then I talk.”

With some coaxing, Severa shares her story. From her lonely childhood to her time in the wilderness, she shares nothing but the bare minimum. The facts, and nothing but the facts. Lucina can feel her opening up, slowly. When a tangent gets too close to intimate knowledge she stops, and the conversation ends for the day. But after enough time, Severa finds solace in her time with Lucina.

It’s a routine of calm friendliness, a source of comfort through the endless marches and patrols and clumsy sword-training and the endless ashen sky. She is startled to find herself looking forward to their talks. She shares with Lucina what she can’t share with anyone else – her fears, her doubts, her anxieties. She cries in front of her just once.

“I hate them,” Severa says through her tears. “I hate them both.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“They left me,” Severa wipes her eyes. “They left me alone for so long.” She clutches her hand into a fist. “I’ll never forgive them. Never.” She breathes out. “They got what they deserved, though.”

Such comments set Lucina on edge. She knows Severa is troubled, but the occasional statements betray an inner darkness, something deeply unsettling. Severa’s anger is so often superficial, a hot flash in a pan. When it isn’t, it scares Lucina. Severa is capable of holding onto such hatred and anger. Her sense of justice seems flawed, and her willingness to repay inconvenience with cruelty makes her a quickly feared figure in the camp.

Only Lucina’s vouching for her keeps the others from returning the hostility Severa shows them.

  

 

_5_

“Maybe I should just do you all a favor and kill myself.”

Severa is seventeen and tired. Tired of all of it. The fighting, the marching. The endless sea of steel and blood and fire. The stench of corpses, the dark sky above. She is sick of the headaches, sick of fighting with those that should be her allies.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It would make all of your lives so much easier, wouldn’t it?”

Lucina sighs. “You know that’s not true.”

“It is true, though. You hate me, they all hate me, and I hate me. What’s even the point?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“One out of three isn’t good enough.”

Severa’s temper has been growing worse. Her mood seems to be all over the place, wavering back and forth between seething rage and spiraling, miserable apathy. Lucina does her best to cheer her up, but only so much can be done. Severa is set in her ways. She refuses to let others dictate how she lives her life, even if they claim to have her best intentions in mind.

Severa brings up suicide only three times, twice in moments of casual frustration but once with such somber sincerity that Lucina is frightened. She panics when she cannot find Severa and scours every inch of the camp, desperately searching for her. She finds her outside camp, sitting on a hillside beneath a tree, sleeping. Her back is against the trunk and she is snoring softly.

“Why do you even care?” she asks when Lucina wakes her.

“Because…” I love you are the words Lucina wants to say, but she cannot find the courage. “Y…you’re important to me. To all of us.”

Severa says nothing, but stares forward, her gaze fixed. “I had the dream again.”

Lucina takes her hand and squeezes it. “It was just a dream.”

It was, but Severa has seen it enough times that it has become like an old friend. A welcomed memory, a warmth of familiarity and comfort that seems at odds to the dream’s content.

Severa hugs her knees tightly. Her pegasus is long gone, lost somewhere in the interminable past. Her red hair drapes in matted tangles over her back.

“I’m afraid, Lucina,” she admits. “I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you. Or hurt someone else.” She looks up. “I…it’s still there. That voice I told you about. It…it makes me see things and think things and I’m so scared that I’m going to do something terrible-“

Lucina pulls her into a tight embrace. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Severa doesn’t explain, but they both know. Lucina’s father had made the same mistake.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Severa says weakly. She sniffs. “I…I want you to promise me something.”

“Of course. Anything.”

“I…if it comes to it, I want you to kill me. Promise me you can do that.”

Lucina is taken aback. “I can’t promise you that. You know I can’t.”

“Promise me.”

Severa slowly makes friends with others around the camp. At Lucina’s behest she begins spending time with the others, though primarily her interactions consist of sparring or helping out with work. She isn’t one for idle chitchat, but even so she manages to find a few soldiers willing to tolerate her presence.

Others join the camp, often orphans, left alone by the decimation of the Ylissean army. And somehow, even to Severa’s own surprise, she finds herself a part of a team. She is no longer fresh meat, and Lucina tasks her with showing the newest additions around the camp, teaching them about camp maintenance, and getting them outfitted with equipment. Severa immediately grates against some of the newcomers, but a handful seem bearable enough.

And for the first time in her life, Severa is not alone. She has friends. She speaks every day. She has others who can help her, and others who rely on her. She laughs for the first time at a dumb joke Inigo tells, and everyone stares at her, silent around the campfire.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh,” Cynthia says, grinning.

Severa pouts. “That’s not true! I laugh all the time!”

Brady shakes his head and shrugs. “I’ve never seen it.”

“Your smile is pretty,” Lucina nudges her after attention is lost and the camp goes back to their conversations. “You should do it more often.” Severa blushes and scowls, but when she turns back to her meal Lucina can see that she’s smiling.

Severa comes to Lucina first, in the dark of the night. She plays it off casually, mentioning she was on patrol and insisting she wanted to check up on Lucina and make sure she’s doing okay. She is less than halfway through her pitiful stammered excuse when Lucina grasps her tightly and pushes their lips together. It is a clumsy kiss, awkward, uncertain, inexperienced. But Severa returns it with her own rough lips, grasping fistfuls of Lucina’s hair as if trying to hold tight to every part of her body. The kisses melt into each other, bleeding into a swirl of gasping breaths and tangled limbs and trembling fingers.

Lucina pulls Severa into her tent and roughly throws her down on her uncomfortable cot before straddling her.

Chest heaving, Severa stares up at her in the darkness. Before she can speak their lips are together again, and they don’t part again until each are gasping for breath. They do not sleep that night, nor the next night. Only when the consecutive sleepless nights take their toll do they collapse into each other’s arms, finally genuinely resting together.

They continue to visit each other in the dead of night, not shameful but desperate, each aching for the touch of the other. Neither are experienced, neither have any real grasp on romance, but what they lack in nuance they make up for in passion, in excited, fumbling fervor. They learn together, quickly matching their bodies to each other, tailoring their motions and touches to the other’s needs and wants, and they lose themselves in nights of passion and lips and warmth and fire.

 

_6_

“You could stay.”

Severa shakes her head.

“Please…just…stay for me, then.”

Severa says nothing and continues packing up her gear. She shakes her head. “You know I can’t do that.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Then you’re even stupider than I thought.”

“Severa…”

Lucina knows she is right. Each day that passes puts the camp in danger. Severa is an unknown. A variable that cannot be factored into plans, into strategies. She is the daughter of Robin, after all. What ill magic flows through her veins is yet unknown, but one thing is clear – she is a ticking clock, waiting for the hands to align and the alarm to sound. Not today, not tomorrow. But one day, her dark nighttime visions will be realized.

“You’ll be alone again.”

That stops Severa in her tracks. Then she nods. “I spent most of my life alone. I’m used to it.”

“Alone in the wilderness, like when you were young? You said that was the most miserable time of your life. Where will you stay? What will you eat?”

Severa shrugs. “I’ll manage. I always have.”

She has the dream more persistently, each time with excruciating detail. She can feel it, even with her waking eyes, her waking hands. She can feel the cold iron sliding into Lucina’s chest, slipping between her ribcage and spilling her Exalted blood. She can feel the jerk of the blade as it hits bone, she can taste the spray of copper. She closes her eyes.

“I cannot stay. You know that.”

Lucina wraps her arms tightly around her and presses her lips against her ear. “Please…” she whispers. “Please…for me. I…” She clutches tightly to Severa. “We need you.”

“No one needs me.”

“I do.”

Severa presses her face into Lucina’s shoulder. “Why?” she asks softly. “I’m…I’m no one.”

“Not to me.”

Severa freezes stock-still when she realizes Lucina is crying.

“Why?” Severa whispers hoarsely. “Why do you even care about me?”

“My heart didn’t give me a choice.”

Severa laughs tersely. “I’m sure it can pick someone better next time.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time,” Lucina says into Severa’s shoulder. “I…I could come with you. We could stay together.”

Severa shakes her head. “They need you here. They need a leader. Not…me.”

Lucina wraps her arms tight around Severa’s midsection, pressing their bodies together. “Please…please stay. Please.”

 

 

_7_

“Please, Lucina,” Severa begs tearfully. “Please, y-you-AH!” she clutches her head and crumples to the ground. Weakly but with determination she pushes herself to her knees. “Y-you have to. You promised!”

Lucina stares at her, heart sinking in her chest. She looks from Severa’s weak form to the chaos of the battlefield before them. She can see them all –friends, her comrades for all this time, fighting desperately. Flashes of steel and blood, the crackle of magic and the scent of burning flesh. The roaring of Risen as they pour into the camp, ripping and tearing at tents her and bodies alike. “Severa, I-“

Severa pulls herself to her feet and lunges, grasping onto Lucina’s shoulder. “Please,” she begs again. Lucina can feel Severa’s full weight, limply tossed against her. “L-Lucina, I…I want you to.”

“No! I can’t! There has to be another way!”

“There isn’t!” Severa cries out. She lets slip her grasp on Lucina and clutches her face in pain. Lucina can see blood dripping from her chin. A droplet of blood runs from her eye, trickling down her cheek. From the trail, more blood begins to spread, seeping across her cheek and tracing out an intricate pattern.

“Kill me!” Severa cries, pressing her hands against her bloody cheeks. “Please, Lucina. While I’m still myself.” Tears flow from her eyes, mingling with the blood, and she presses herself tightly against Lucina. “I…I love you, Lucina. I don’t want to hurt you. Please…please…while I’m still your Severa.”

Lucina sobs, wrapping her arms around Severa. “I c-can’t!” she protests. “Severa, you know I can’t do that.”

“You promised me,” Severa whispers weakly. “You promised me that if it came to it, you’d-AGH!” she staggers backwards and falls to the ground. Lucina can still hear her whimpered pleas.

“S…Severa…” Lucina reaches a cautious hand to her.

Severa jerks forward onto her knees and begins thrashing wildly, letting out gasps of pain as she spasms.

“Agh!” she cries. “It-it hurts…oh gods, it hurts!”

Lucina stares in horror, watching Severa’s body changing before her very eyes. Severa looks up at her, her eyes watery and pained. Down each cheek, traced in blood, are more eyes. Her eyes are pleading.

She spasms again and with a cry of pain, feathered black wings sprout from her back, tearing through flesh and fabric with a sickening rip. She sobs, curling up on the ground as her body changes against her will, her dark blood fulfilling its purpose at long last.

She reaches out a hand to Lucina, who can see it on the backs of each hand – the mark of Grima. The six eyes, the same six eyes which track down her cheeks in blood. And the six wings, feathered, spindly things wrapping around her body.

Lucina panics and draws Falchion.

“Please just end it,” Severa begs weakly. “K-kill me…Oh gods, it hurts…”

“I can save you!” Lucina shouts through her tears. “I can-“ She staggers backwards.

Severa stops moving. She is still on her hands and knees in the mud, six wings draped over her back, which are now damp and matted with blood. Her face is turned to the ground, but Lucina can still see the blood dripping from her chin. Her human eyes are covered by her mess of matted red bangs. Only her mouth is visible, which Lucina watches twist into a snarling, fanged sneer.

Severa begins trembling, shaking. And after a moment, Lucina realizes that she is laughing.

“Ha…ha…ha…” the mouth grins. “Hahahahaha!” She tilts her head upwards, her neck cracking as she does. Her eyes are dark and red. All six of them, set into her cheeks.

Lucina raises a hand to her mouth in horror.

“Hahahaha! Hahahahaha!” Severa continues cackling. Her wings flap softly, in time with her shuddering laughter. She pushes herself to her feet.

“S…Severa?” Lucina holds Falchion out unsteadily.

“Severa?” Severa repeats back, as if trying to recall something. “No. Not Severa. This body hasn’t been home to anyone named Severa in quite some time.” She checks the sword at her hip, draws it, tests the weight, as if surprised by the density of it.

“W-what?” Lucina redoubles her grip on her sword. “What are you talking about?”

“Severa has been dead for, oh…quite some time, now.”

“What? N-no, she-“ Lucina stammers, panic inching into her voice.

“She starved to death in the wilderness just outside the Feroxi border,” the thing that was once Severa explains. She twirls Severa’s old iron sword idly, slicing it in lazy arcs through the air.

“But-“

“But what?” she shakes her wings, a flutter of black down feathers falling to the ground. She reaches up and unties her hairties, letting her long red hair drape haphazardly over her back. Her hair truly is reminiscent of her mother’s. She grins and all six eyes narrow. “What indeed?”

“S…Severa…” Lucina frowns. “I-I don’t believe you! I know she’s in there!”

Severa rolls her eyes. It was odd, seeing that motion that Lucina had seen so often before. It felt different, and it wasn’t just the multiplication factor. The motion was different, like a different person was doing the eye-rolling. “She’s long-dead.”

“B-but…” Lucina’s mind races, back through their time together. “It couldn’t have been you…not the whole time.”

“A convincing act, if I do say so myself.” Severa turns. She bows with a flourish. From her bowed position she lifts her head. “Oh, my…you never met Severa, did you?”

“I…” Lucina closes her eyes, trying to stem the tears with no success. “No, I-“

“She was dead before you even met.”

Lucina feels a hot flash of anger. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. And this monster wearing her lover was taunting her. Playing with her. It couldn’t be true. Severa was alive, and she was in there somewhere. The girl she fell in love with.

Lucina grits her teeth and lunges, slashing Falchion in a wide arc at the same moment that Severa leaps forward, slashing with her own sword.

The blades meet in the middle.

“Give her back!” Lucina cries, pulling back and heaving her sword forward with a mighty swing. “I know she’s in there!”

Severa parried and kicks outwards, her boot colliding with Lucina’s knee. Lucina crumples and Severa brings her sword crashing down.

Lucina catches it with her own blade and rolls, scrambling to her feet. “Severa! I know you’re there!” she cries out again. It’s hard to see through her filter of tears and she wipes her eyes.

Their blades meet again and they each press forward, trying to overpower the other. Lucina clenches her teeth and pushes her blade, trying to drive Severa’s sword back into her own body. Their faces are close, so very close. Lucina can see Severa’s new form with such utter, terrifying clarity.

“Give her back, you monster,” Lucina growls through her teeth.

“Who?” Severa smirks.

“I’ll kill you.” Lucina pushes with renewed vigor. “You will not take her from me.”

“She and I have always been one,” Severa says. “You loved her, didn’t you?”

Lucina growls, feeling the fatigue setting in. This Severa is strong, stronger than she has any right to be.

“Then you loved me. All those nights together…” Severa grins. “It was fun, but it had to end at some point.”

“I’ll kill you,” Lucina repeats. She stares into Severa’s eyes.

Her eyes are dark and angry, transfix on Lucina’s form. Down each cheek are more eyes, swiveling haphazardly, taking stock of the situation, the environment, their weapons. It is a distinct advantage, and Severa makes use of Lucina’s horror to hook her blade against Falchion’s hilt and pry it from Lucina’s grasp. Severa follows up with a lunge and Lucina spins, dodging one second too late. The sword grazes her side, slicing her clothes and tracing a thin line of blood.

Lucina scrambles forward and snatches up her sword. She turns and charges. Severa leaps back, her dodge given superhuman speed and height by a flap of her black wings. She easily dodges the move.

“I grow tired of this,” Severa says, turning. Wordlessly, she gestures to the Risen. They cease their fighting, turning their attention to their winged commander.

Lucina watches nervously. The rest of the camp turns to see, and what they see is Severa, in all her terrible and awesome spectacle. The bloody face, the splayed red hair, the twitching black wings. She sheathes her sword and marches forward.

“S-Severa?” Cynthia calls out to her, nervously.

“That’s not Severa,” Inigo says gravely, wiping black blood from his sword.

Lucina falls to her knees, watching Severa’s back as she walks. “N-no,” she whispers inaudibly. “S…Severa…”

Severa again gestures to the assembled throng of Risen. They begin to disperse, retreating back into the dark woods.

“Severa!” Lucina climbs to her feet unsteadily. “I know you’re in there!”

Severa stops.

“I know you are. I…” Lucina takes a breath and steadies her shaking voice. “I love you, Severa. I swear to you, I will not let this thing have you.”

Severa turns to face Lucina. She laughs again, the sound mirthless and echoing. She holds her arms out.

“Do it, then. Save her.”

Lucina stares.

Severa laughs and turns around. Lucina falls to the ground, sobbing as she watches the black wings disappear into the forest.

 

_8_

Lucina sinks into a haze of desperation and panic. Grima has taken everything from her. Her father, her mother. Her homeland, her kingdom. Her people. Everything she ever had, crumbled before the might of the fell dragon. And now this, the final nail in the coffin. Her chance at happiness, the last gasp of love in her weary heart.

Severa vanishes into the wilderness.

Lucina finds herself at odds with the others in the camp. Many choose to abandon Severa, their own personal suspicions at last vindicated. She was a monster, a ticking clock that was finally set off. And now she was simply another foe, another enemy in the sea of adversity this hellish world had set before them. There was no difference between this new Severa and the Risen.

Lucina snaps once, over dinner, infuriated by a remark that they never should have saved Severa in the first place.

She snaps and screams, her somber and regal façade cracking. She throws a tantrum, the weeks of loneliness and panic and fear and regret finally bursting forth, flowing like water from a crumbling dam. She screams and cries and storms off, her cape fluttering in her wake.

The regret is the worst part of it. She had seen the signs, even from the first day. From the day Severa arrived in her father’s robes, Lucina had suspicions. Time and again she chose to ignore the signs. Her anger, her ceaseless temper. The dreams. Her confessions of the voice taunting her and berating her, an internal voice driving her to act. Lucina curls up in her tent, arms clutched tightly around her head, and she sobs.

Severa herself even knew – she tried so many avenues of escape, of freeing herself from her curse and keeping Lucina safe. Severa had tried to leave. She had tried suicide. She had almost fallen in battle several times, and yet Lucina kept her. She forbade her from dying, for the sake of her own selfish desires. She wanted her warmth and her flesh and her soft lips and her deft hands and for that she engendered her own fate.

All this pain, all this misery was her own doing.

The Risen attack had decimated their camp, wrecking supplies and killing soldiers. The loss of Severa paled in comparison to the logistical toll the army had taken, and Lucina blames herself. Rightfully so.

She had frozen, panicked upon seeing Severa’s transformation. She should have been fighting, should have been issuing orders and orchestrating a counterattack. She had failed her people, what little of them was left. And so she cries, frustrated with Severa, frustrated with the others, frustrated with herself, frustrated with her inescapable place in this blighted hellscape.

She resolves to save Severa. If nothing else, that is the one mistake she can fix. She can’t bring back the dead, but she can do this one thing. She buckles her sword to her hip, she ties her hair up, and she leaves, plunging into the dark and ashy forest of burning trees and crumbling ruins. Cynthia is left as acting commander, though the camp is to stay put. They are on the defensive, and their only orders are to maintain and recover.

Lucina sets off alone into the wilderness, bringing with her naught but her father’s sword and a determination to right what she has wronged.

And so they each live their own lonely lives, the Exalt and the Fellblood, an endless chase through miles and miles of blighted countryside, through poisoned bogs and ruined towns and crumbling canyons. Through burning forests, across ridges covered in ash like fresh snow. Severa flees and Lucina pursues, desperate and determined to reclaim the life her failures have lost.

She sleeps in caves, under overhangs, in hastily constructed forts. She boils acrid rainwater, hunts what few animals are left in the ruinous world. She hikes through miles of burned fields, sits on high hills and gazes at the darkening sky. She knows where Severa is leading her.

To Him.

But she follows, fearlessly. She rests the bare minimum, only a few hours a night. She eats almost nothing, focused on naught but her goal. And in the sky overhead, the silhouette grows. The black wings beating the air, the harsh, unreal shape of the Fell Dragon.

Lucina prays. She prays to her Hero-King for his strength, she prays to her father for his will and to her mother for her courage. She prays to Naga, asking for a solution. Severa can be saved. She must be saved.

“Please,” Lucina whispers into her clasped hands. “Please, Naga…i-if you’re listening, I…I don’t know what to do.” She sniffles. The weeks have begun to take their toll and she longs for home. Even her tent and her cot seem like warmth, seem as distant to her now as her cozy bed in her father’s castle. But instead she has nothing, the canopy of tangled deadwood above her and the mire of ash on the ground below. She kneels, bows, lies prostrate.

“Please, Naga. P-please.”

And here on this unnamed mountainside, in the muck and grime, beneath a darkened sky, Lucina feels a warm breeze caress her, like comforting fingers dancing lightly across her face. She keeps her eyes closed, unwilling to let this illusion fade. She sniffles once more and lets slip another hoarse plea.

“I…I have to save her.”

She can feel the warm breeze again, and she can smell the soft scent of dried autumn leaves. For the first time in years, her senses are not clogged with the stench of death and the feeling of heavy air, but with the soft drifting sensations of autumn. Of harvest festivals, of vast fields of waving grain. She can hear the rustle of leaves in the wind, and in the rustling, she hears a voice.

“Hear me, bearer of the Exalt’s brand.”

Lucina’s breath catches. She does not dare hope.

“Trust in Falchion.”

Lucina stumbles on her words, fatigue and confusion mingling in her mind. “W-wait, I don’t understand!”

The breeze fades.

“N-no! W-wait! I…I don’t know what you want…” Lucina opens her eyes but there is nothing before her, nothing but the sea of fire and the vast shape above.

 

_9_

Severa stares at her reflection in the dark, churning sea. Between frothing gray waves she can see her face, her weary eyes, her bloody cheeks. The black wings spread behind her, stronger and more imposing, having shed their down feathers, now coated in a slick oily sheen. She kneels in the surf and touches the sea. It stings when a wave splashes her, spraying her face with the bitter saltwater.

She feels something strange inside her. A feeling she is unused to. She kneels and lets the cold water wash over her legs.

The beach is barren, the sandy shore vast and gray and empty. Dotted along the shore are skeletons of sea-creatures, washed up and rotting. Severa watches the sky. The great shape of the Fell Dragon is above, blotting out the western sky.

Father.

She stands and shakes her wings, splashing droplets of bitter seawater on her clothes and on the damp sand behind her.

“Severa.”

A voice calls to her and she turns.

Lucina cuts a striking figure, her silhouette bright on the dark shore. The wind whips between them, fluttering her long blue hair and rippling it around her, a stark contrast to Severa’s own scarlet locks. Lucina is tall and strong, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

Severa is surprised, genuinely. She blinks, all six eyes opening and closing in synchronized motion. She uncurls her wings against the wind, letting the breeze ruffle the black feathers.

“Lucina.”

“I’ve come to take you back.”

Severa grins a wry smile. “Oh, have you?” Her sword is still at her belt. She takes a step towards Lucina, her boots sinking ever so slightly into the sand.

Lucina stares her down. If they were to have a fight, she would most certainly lose. Underfed and exhausted from weeks on the road was a bad place to start, but this beach would be the worst place to fight. No way to get solid footing, no tricky footwork possible. She would have to rely on what she knew of this new Severa.

Severa steps forward again. “I told you, fool. There is no Severa. Not anymore.”

“You’re him, aren’t you? Grima.”

Severa grins and bows her little bow. “’Him’ seems like such an antiquated term. Besides, you ask as if you don’t already know.”

Lucina takes the opening and lunges. She grasps Severa by the roots of her hair and shoves her down face-first into the sand.

Before Severa can even respond Lucina presses her body into the ground and mounts her, keeping her pinned down. Lucina grits her teeth. No retreating this time.

The pain Severa feels is distant, muted. The pain of a body that is not her own being damaged as Lucina hacks at her wings. She slices Falchion through the base of her wings, drawing a spray of black blood and a roar of anger from Severa.

She rolls, writhing and trying to cast Lucina off her back. “I’ll kill you!” she roars. “I’ll kill you, like I killed your father!”

The words strike a blow against Lucina’s chest and she freezes for just long enough that Severa can shove her off and scramble to her feet, black blood pouring down her back and mingling with her tangles of long red hair.

“Make no mistake,” Severa growls. “I will kill you, as I did your father, and your mother. Everyone you ever loved will bow down before me. They will beg me for death before I grant their requests.”

Lucina wipes her mouth with one hand and holds Falchion out before her with the other. “You’re not Severa.”

Severa draws her own sword. “She is me. I am her. We are one and the same. You cannot kill me without killing her.”

Lucina clenches her teeth. Trust in Falchion. “I can try.”

The clash of steel on steel rings out on the barren, windy beach. It is a clumsy fight, all slipping feet and sprays of sand, more fists and brute strength than finesse and training. Lucina is tired, and with each blow of sword against sword she feels her strength draining all the further.

Trust in Falchion.

She kicks, pushing Severa back. Severa in turn lunges forward. Lucina drops to her knees, under Severa’s blow, and thrusts her blade forward with both hands wrapped around the hilt.

She can feel Severa’s chest collide with the blade. It slips through with surprising ease, plunging through her cloth cuirass like it were paper. Red blood, not black, pours from the wound.

Lucina and Severa are both still. The only sound is the crashing of waves and the soft hum of the breeze. Droplets splatter the beach around Lucina’s knees. Not rain, but tears.

“S-Severa…” she breathes, trembling. “I…I didn’t…”

Severa is frozen, shock or pain or both keeping her still, pierced by Falchion’s blade, her chest almost reaching the hilt.

Lucina withdraws and Severa collapses to the beach.

“No!” Lucina cries, dropping to he knees beside her prone form. “No, I…” she cradles her body and looks skyward. “I did what you wanted! I trusted Falchion! I…” she gasps for breath, choking and sputtering on the tears running down her face. “I didn’t mean for …”

She bows over Severa’s body, her hands sticky with red blood and black blood and black feathers and red hair and she sobs, frustrated, scared, and so very, very alone.

 

_10_

Severa wakes slowly, painfully. Everything is sore. Her face is stiff, her mouth tastes like copper and sawdust. Her back is the worst of it, a searing pain cutting down her spine that ignites a white flash in her eyes each time she shifts or moves.

“W…wh…” she mutters, opening her eyes slowly. Her face feels rigid.

“Shh, don’t speak.” A voice hushes her. Soft hands tend to her, gently stroking her hair. “It’s okay.”

“Where…where am I?” Severa blinks, trying to open her eyes in the darkness. A figure is sitting with her, long tresses of blue hair draped over her shoulders. “Who…” Severa groans, another spasm of pain striking her. “Who are y-you?” she tries again.

The girl holding her is crying, and Severa isn’t sure why. Who was this person? Why was she crying? Why was she here? Where was here? Severa closes her eyes and tries to remember, but everything is a blur. Like a dream, half-remembered. She tries to push herself up, but the pain is too great and she falls again. She feels sticky.

“Severa, it’s me,” the girl says tearfully. “It’s me. It’s okay.”

“W…who?” Severa reaches out to touch her. “I’m…I’m sorry, I…”

“It’s Lucina,” Lucina says. “It’s your Lucina. Do you remember me?”

Severa shakes her head. “I…I’m looking for my parents,” she says weakly. “M…my mother is a pegasus kn-knight. My f-father is a tact-“ she stops, interrupted by Lucina bursting into tears.

“Severa,” Lucina sobs. “Oh gods, Severa…”

Severa reaches up to wipe her own eyes. Why is she crying? She doesn’t even know this girl, and yet…her heart aches, a deep-seated pain that she can’t place. When her fingers brush her cheek, she feels it. Raised, scarred flesh. Underneath each eye, dark scars reaching down to her chin. “W…what happened to me?” Severa says, suddenly fearful.

“Where am I?” she writhes in panic and the pain shoots across her back again. “Oh, gods…w…where am I?”

“You’re safe,” Lucina tries to reassure her. “You’re safe. It’s okay.” Severa looks around. They are in a cave, by the looks of it. The air smells bitter and salty. Near the sea, perhaps. A long way from Ylisstol.

Severa listens patiently as Lucina explains everything. She nods, willing to accept most of her story. It seems farfetched, would seem unreasonable were it not for her pain and her scars. She begins to recall in bits and pieces, remembering things here and there. It’s only that – bits and pieces of the past, but it’s enough that any missing pieces can be filled in by Lucina.

Severa cries when she sees her face. She has two eyes, the normal human amount, but each cheek is indelibly marked, violent red scars tracing out the evidence of her dark heritage. She cries, scared and confused, terrified of a past she has no grasp of.

The pain in her back bothers her less so, perhaps because she cannot see it. She knows they are there – six terrible, ugly scars, dark and violent against her pale skin, but she never sees her own back and Lucina assures her that they’re not as bad as all that. Severa hates her face but Lucina seems to care for her regardless.

The pain, is harsh and seemingly unending, and only Lucina’s patient, tender care helps Severa manage. She helps Severa walk, offering her a shoulder for support or carrying her when the pain is too great. Lucina is strong, and Severa feels silly, but resting in her arms is comfortable.

She helps Severa bathe, washing her back carefully to avoid hurting her. The wings are all but gone but the scars remain. She also helps clean Severa’s face, softly dabbing her scarred cheeks with a warm cloth. Her cheeks seep blood, and on occasion Severa wakes with her face caked in dried red.

Even at night Lucina lays with her, touching her softly when the pain or the nightmares become unbearable. She kisses Severa, with permission. It is strange, to Severa, to think they had been lovers. She cannot recall the details but Lucina fills her heart with warmth and comfort.

Lucina touches her face gently, stroking the scarred cheeks, pressing her lips against her eyelids, her nose, her lips. Severa thinks herself a monster, disfigured and grotesque, but Lucina kisses her scars and holds her tightly.

They make progress slowly, back towards the land that was once Ylisse. Towards home. Traversing the burnt fields and the dried rivers and the towns they had passed through in such a blur. The return journey takes considerably longer, but their slow progress gives Severa time to heal and Lucina time to nurture her and to help coax her memories back. They never return completely, but Severa regains her grasp on some things. She remembers hearing of her parents’ death, though she cannot remember why. She remembers making friends with the others at camp, though she cannot recall their names, nor faces. And she remembers Lucina. Her kisses and her gentle hand are so familiar, so comforting, that they must have been lovers. And if they weren’t before, Severa is more than willing to accept that they are now.

They walk together, they survive together. Severa finds a sewing kit in a burnt shop and fixes Lucina’s cape while she is out hunting. Lucina finds a set of crutches while scavenging that enable Severa to walk more or less on her own.

Lucina kisses Severa every day. She assures her that she loves her and forgives her, even when Severa wakes in the night, tormented by half-remembered visions of violence and blood and anger. Severa refuses to forgive herself, and just once Lucina wakes to find their small camp empty. She quickly catches up to Severa, who had limped off without her crutches.

Lucina finds her sitting on the porch of a wooden cabin, long-since abandoned in the dead tangle of forest. Severa is sitting, dangling her legs off the porch, staring at her feet.

“Hey.”

Severa looks up and Lucina can see tears are brimming in her eyes. “I-I don’t deserve you,” she says. “You should have let me go.”

Lucina sits next to her and puts a gentle arm around her, careful to avoid too much pressure against her back. “I would never. I would follow you to the ends of the earth.”

“Why, though?” Severa faces her and the tears overflow, spilling down her rough cheeks. “Why? No one has ever wanted me.”  

Lucina tugs her closer. “I do.”

Severa buries her face in Lucina’s shoulder. Lucina hugs her tightly and presses her lips into Severa’s forehead.

They hold each other, sitting on a wooden porch in front of a small pond in a thicket of trees nestled in the mountains, underneath the black sky and with the scent of ash on the air, in a world somehow so terrible and beautiful all at once.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I did feel obligated to give them a happy ending despite it all, and I'm half-tempted to write a counterpart piece for Lucina. We'll see though!
> 
> This was mainly the result of me wanting to write stuff for my other lucisev piece but I kept making things angsty and dramatic, so I put all that stuff into this! Well, that and I've been listening to The Hotelier all week, so let's consider this spiritually inspired by the very good album Home, Like No Place Is There (a song from which the title of this fic is taken).
> 
> Anyway, thanks! As always comments and kudos are appreciated!


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